Stocking Crappie and Bass in same pond

Don't do it unless you want a crappie pond with skinny undersized starving bass. They don't co-exist well in small water. Crappie win.


My pond is 4.5ac impounded in the 60's and has both LMB and Black Crappie.

Crappie own the pond.

Little known fact- once all forage is depleted from the pond, crappie can filter feed on plankton and eat their own young to survive. Bass and bluegill can't.

Don't put crappie in there.

Bluegill/Coppernose/shellcracker taste good too. No reason to add crappie just because you want something to eat.

Feed the bluegill during the growing season (water temp over 70) and they grow really fast, larger bluegill lay exponentially more eggs = more fry = more minnows = more little bluegill = more bass food = healthy bass. That's a little oversimplified but that's the philosophy. Basic food chain stuff.

Adding fatheads and crawfish definitely doesn't hurt either. I've explored both, but finances won't allow it, and the fact the crappie would decimate the fatheads quickly is a downer.


I'm not the end all be all expert, I've read and learned a lot from this forum over the years, Pond Boss, TAMU extension office, MsSt extension office, et Al.

I'm just imploring you to not put crappie in that pond.

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I subscribe to Bama Bass youtube channel in your link, but it is certainly not best practice pond management. It is a guy with a big chunk of change running a large scale aquarium. Not putting him down, like I said I subscribe and watch his videos, but this is not pond management 101.

Pond pics

I’m military so we still live away, but will return to La in a few years and plan to build near the pond. Thanks for the feedback.

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What do you mean? He said in his lastest video he needed to watch the bass spawn to make sure they didn’t over run his 5ac pond

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If you have unlimited funds to make a Margaritaville pond, by all means do it, and I subscribe. But that's not pond 101.

No crappie it is.

Will need a boat product to fish it at some point, what do you use? Thinking classic aluminum John with trolling motor, but have looked at the petit two-person mini pontoon like BPS prowler.

I've done a lot of reading and watching videos on pond management. The common thought seems to be don't stock both in a pond less than 5 acres. Based on what I've read I would push that number out to 8-10 acres. Like everyone has said, Crappie take over.

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petit two-person mini pontoon like BPS prowler.

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Don’t do it. It gets cramped fast and sucks for bass fishing. It’s “10’” but it’s really only about 8’ useable and you have someone 3’ behind you. If you are always by yourself you can make it work, but the Aluminum Jon boat is a better option.